The Vancouver Sun from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 17

ENTERTAINMENT 4, 1974! 7 women walk off with ACTRA awards Th A if nil--" 4 1 I 1 fc'w I fr ft tjM" lift I I F'J1' Sf -F "HiTH, I III 1 I 1 JL K' I -1 jL.J Eisvi ftfl I 4i Pt abandon. They have been nicknamed Nellies by the ACTRA office workers, a name that apparently will join Oscars and Emmies for Canadian artists in broadcasting. Presentations were made by a list of Canadian personalities including State Secretary Hugh Faulkner, hockey star Ken Dryden, and radio-TV stars Fred Davis, Jane Mallett, W. 0. Mitchell, and Bernard Braden, among others.

The ACTRA award for longtime distinguished service to broadcasting, the John Drainie Award, went to Len Peterson, author of more than 1,200 radio, television and stage scripts in the last 35 years. Danny Gallivan, Montreal play by -play hockey broadcaster, won the sportscaster award. Howie Meeker, former NHL star, won the Gordon Sinclair Award for outspoken opinion and integrity in broadcasting, for his Hockey Night in Canada game analysis. Harry Rasky of Toronto won the best TV-film documentary writer award for his CBC-TV biography, Tennessee Williams South. The parallel award in radio went to Rod Coneybeare, for his Frank Sinatra Special on CBC radio.

Munroe Scott won the ACTRA award for a radio drama writer for the play, The Devil's Petition. All the awards were made, except the John Drainie Award for long-term distinguished service, for work done in 1973. Two years ago, ACTRA made only three awards, and last year, seven. Parrish said the 12 awards made this 1 year will be expanded next year. The awards are not divided between best actor and best actress, but each one is open to both sexes.

They now are limited to radio and tel-r evision work, but Parrish said they will be expanded into theatre, films, recordings, and writing for other entertainment media. By JAMES NELSON TORONTO (CP) Women won five prizes for best acting, variety performance, and public affairs broadcasting in the annual Association of Canadian Television and Radio Artists ACTRA awards Saturday night. The third annual ACTRA awards dinner drew a coast to coast television audience for the first time, and ACTRA president Donald R. Parrish announced that new award categories will be added next' year for behind the microphone and behind the camera work. The top TV or film acting prize the Earle Grey Award went to Jackie Burroughs of Montreal for her performance in the CBC-TV drama, Vicky.

Last year's winner was Gordon Pinsent, and the award is made to the best actor or actress of the year. Vicky, a story of a broken marriage, also won for its author, Grahame Woods, the best TV or film drama writer award. Denise Pelletier won the Andrew Allan Award for best radio acting, for her performance in the title role of Colette, a CBC Halifax production. She was absent from the awards dinner, filling an acting engagement in Montreal. Women took both prizes in public affairs broadcasting, for work in television and on radio.

Adrienne Clarkson of Toronto won the TV award for her work on the famine in Niger, in the Take 30 series. Barbara Frum of Toronto won the radio public affairs award for her work on the CBC evening show, As It Happens. The best variety artist award, for television or radio, went to Diane Stapley of Winnipeg, for her appearances on Inside Canada. She also was absent from the dinner, performing in Calgary. The winners received small bronze statues of a woman running with gay Ray Allan Photo Vancouver School of Art student Debbie Newton works on acrylic and stain canvas in B.C.

building at the PNE, Something spirited to celebrate Tuckwell is not only a first-rate performer on a difficult instrument, but a musician of taste and intelligence. Neil McKay's first symphony dates from 1956, and, like most first major works, it demonstrates its influence the way a picketer wears his placard: around his neck and writ large. McKay is a B.C.-born composer who has been teaching orchestration and composition at the University of Hawaii, and what we heard on Sunday proclaimed the considerable influence of the Russian school, and Shostakovich in particular. This is no bad thing, as it turns out, because McKay demonstrates a notable musicianship, a real feel for interesting ideas and a clever and subtle way of working them out. His first symphony is, to be sure, derivative in over-all sound; in detail, however, it is packed distinct warmth toward the work's clean, simple beauties.

Despite the fact that the Richard Strauss horn concerto was written some time before Strauss switched allegiance from the strictly classical to the overtly experimental, the work stands in considerable contrast to the Mozart. It is, for a start, more obviously brilliant in its writing for the solo instrumentthe soloist must not only shine as a technician, but must be seen to shine. The Strauss, for all its throwback connections with the romantic, classical school, 'a la Schumann or Brahms, is hot-blooded and has a tendency to the tempestuous. The central andante, as played by Tuckwell, had a great nobility about it, a slow, reflective sadness but the flanking allegros came across with beautifully-achieved fire and color. All the world loves to hear a concerto VSO conductor signs new By MAX WYMAN Sun Music Critic In view of the announcements that were made about the extension of Ka-zuyoshi Akiyama's contract to lead the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Sunday afternoon's VSO concert became a kind of celebration.

And by- the greatest of good fortune, the programming had, for the most part, exactly the right celebratory feel: Barry Tuckwell to play two horn concertos a very attractive, very Russian symphony of a B.C. composer and Dvorak's merry and vivacious eighth symphony. The only truly sombre note about the entire afternoon came at the beginning of the program's second half, when Aki-yama and a reduced orchestra played Musica Serena, a short work written by Vancouver composer Elliot Weisgarber in memory of the late Conrad Crocker, VSO flute and piccolo player. This soft-spoken, gently drifting composition has about it a tender, hushed calm, a texture predominantly of string-tone overlaid with threads of solo wind instruments, and, at the end, a graceful moment for the piccolo. It was played, and received, with sensitivity and quiet.

Australia-born Tuckwell chose two of the most delightful works from what is admittedly a limited repertoire for the French horn soloist the third Mozart concerto, 447 in flat major, and the Strauss concerto No. 1, Op. 11, in the same key. The Mozart is the best of what we know as this composer's four horn concertos, and the most consistently interesting. It is a graceful, lilting composition, filled with elegance, wit and charm qualities which were effectively caught by Tuckwell and the orchestra Sunday.

The orchestra-horn balance was never much in doubt; Akiyama kept a tight rein on his orchestral forces, and allowed Tuckwell's sweet, somewhat rustic tone full play. Tuckwell, for his part, displayed not only a skilled technique but a with invention, sensitivity, and clever, interesting thought. If he has written any others, the VSO might well be doing us all a service by playing, some time in the future, a more recent McKay work. The Dvorak symphony No. 8 is a lovely, innocent, lyrical piece, and Akiyama and the orchestra presented it in exuberant style a little lumpy in places, a little jerky at the start, and an occasional reference or two to the old of the missing middle voice, with lots of extremes, bursting fortes and whispering pianissimos, but a certain midway lack: though this is, as we are coming more and more to see, the Akiyama way, and it has its own consistency.

A good afternoon; the program will be repeated tonight at 8.30 and tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. contract The VSO subscription total is in fact the highest of any orchestra in North America, and 5,000 ahead of its nearest Canadian rival, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Brodie presented Akiyama with a gold watch with two hour hands "one of these he can leave permanently on Vancouver time and the other he can set at the local time of whatever country he is in. "Then, no matter where he goes in the world, every time he looks at his watch he will be reminded of Vancouver and know that our best wishes are with him." at 7:30 p.m. March 15.

A premiere performance of Harry Freedman's Quartet for Four Cellos will be given. The B.C. Institute of Technology will present Russ Thornberry and the Original Caste (Of One Tin Soldier fame) at the B.C.I.T. activities gym at 8 p.m. March 14.

The Or Chadash Folkdancers will present two concerts of international folk dances at the Jewish Community Centre, 950 West Forty-First, at 2 p.m. for children, and at 8 p.m. March 17. SHOWTIMES CLUBS 8, 10, midnight, Jehry Lee Miller. Bayshore Inn.

9:30, midnight, The David Sterling Show. Oil Can Harry's. 10, midnight, John Lee Hooker. Kego Club. STAGE 8, Under Milk Wood.

Langara College, Studio 58. 8:30, Battering Ram. Arts Club Theatre. MUSIC 8:30, Vancouver Symphony Or-' chestra. Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

TUESDAY NOON STAGE 12:15, 1:15, Fathers Sons and Cousin Petherick the Will. City Stage. ingly hopeless assortment of scraps and shorthand notes left him. The viola is accorded the duty of singing the swan song, one that voices alter- nately bitterness, passion and serene resignation. All the virtuosity demanded of the soloist was addressed with keen expressiveness by Etter.

His tone and phrasing made the adagio religioso bloom with feeling, just as his manual agility made short work of Bartok's agitated themes, barbarous rhythms and fiery cadenzas. Sparse though the orchestration may be in texture, Douglas' players supplied a resilient and balanced background of tone, making its points where called to, with especially impressive work in the -recapitulation of the first movement and in the devotional second. Their Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 had some savory moments, notably the work by horn, oboe, bassoon and violino piccolo soloists, and, in the most uniformly well-played movement, the Menuetto with its bounty of graceful effects. The orchestra ended with Prokofiev's Symphony No.

7, a small work in rela- tion to the more popular fourth, fifth and sixth, but eminently likable for its fertile inventiveness and balletic charm. The playing here was rather touch and go sometimes, and the andante es-' pressivo was andante, all right, if not very espressivo; but the players did reasonably well by it nonetheless. lessons 'consort' guitar-like pandora and Kathy Cernaus-; kas on Renaissance flute. James Fan--khauser sang and Nurse volunteered his customary expertise on the lute. After an incidence of some rather; loose and hesitant ensemble at points in' the first half, the consort tightened its ranks to reveal the sonorous and balanced blend of colors that can come from this assortment of instruments.

Of especial interest was that study in Elizabethan melancholy, the extended Flow My Tears by John Dowland, with tenor James Fankhauser joining the ensemble. Fankhauser's voice fit nicely into the: format, primarily, I found, for the fact; of its unpolished character. Its "informality" or rusticity or whatever one" might want to call it enhanced such se lections as Dowland's I Must and Lady, If You So Spite Me, creating-almost an illusion of an impromptu Eliz-' abethan get-together; needless to say, his musical insight was decidedly a factor as well. Lute ducts written by John Johnson, Thomas Robinson and an anonymous composer and fleetly performed by Nurse and Fitzgibbon 'vere among the more enjoyable segments of the program, others being Giovanni Coperario'sl cerebral two and three part Fantasias. By LLOYD DYKK By coincidence, Bartok's Viola Concerto, an otherwise rarely-heard work, has been performed twice in Vancouver within the last month, first by famed violist Raphael Hillyer with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.

Saturday night at the University of B.C. old auditorium, it was the high point of the program given by the Vancouver Philharmonic Orchestra under Paul Douglas, with the solo role taken by Philippe Etter, no mean viola player himself. By programming concertos and enlisting the talents of some of the city's foremost musicians in the solo spots, the VPO has hit on a good scheme for its series. (Pianist Dale Reubart took part in the last concert and in the next on May 11, Norman Nelson will play the Brahms Violin Concerto.) Not only does this help draw attendance, it also gives amateur musicians the valuable experience of playing good music with professionals. Then too, all the world is supposed to love a concerto.

By and large, the Bartok concerto came off quite well, bearing witness to a good deal of preparation and pointed interaction. The work was Bartok's last, written in the last months of In fact, Bartok died before drafting the work completely, which task was undertaken by his associate Tibor Serly who painstakingly jig-sawed a score from the seem Elizabethan re-created in By LLOYD DYKK The latest in a proliferation of early music groups to have been formed in the city over the past few years is The Broken Consort which, under the direction of Ray Nurse, played at the Queen Elizabeth Playhouse Sunday evening in a concert sponsored by the Classical Guitar Society of Vancouver. Broken consort is the term for a certain instrumental ensemble that emerged in Elizabethan England, one that consisted of treble and bass viols, cittern, pandora, lute and recorder or Renaissance flute. As opposed to much of the music of the era that could be plucked or blown or scraped or sung in any available combination of resources, the broken consort was the first form of specified ensemble in England, and Thomas Morlcy's First Book of Consort Lessons, the first publication to actually score music for it. The evening was a re-creation, on period copies of the instruments, of some of the pieces from Morlcy's Lessons, including lute songs, lute ducts and solos.

On hand were Jon Washburn and John Sawyer on bass and treble viols, Brian Fitzgibbon on the little quill-plucked cittern (or Renaissance ukulele as someone called it), Christopher Jordan on the PurceI9 String Quartet plesyistg top of their form By MAX WYMAN Japanese conductor Kazuyoshi Akiyama has signed a contract to remain as music director and resident -conductor of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra at least until 1977. In an announcement before the VSO concert at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre Sunday, symphony society president Bob Brodie said Akiyama's original agreement with the orchestra was for a firm two-year commitment, with an option on a third year. The two-year agreement expires at the end of the current season, next June, and a new three-year contract will run from that date. Akiyma has been much in demand in other parts of the world since his initial Vancouver appointment, and many observers thought he might leave Vancouver and accept one of several offers he has received from larger, richer and more influential orchestras in the U.S. As it is, he will continue to spend about 40 per cent of his working time in Vancouver, and spend the rest of the Franck's lushly chromatic writing.

"The impact of his music on any kind of emotional person is irresistible," wrote Edward Lockspeiser. Snyder and the Purcell Quartet made it undeniably so. Unaccompanied, the quartet played Beethoven's String Quartet in Op. 135, his last. Beethoven could hardly have ended his protean output of quartets more effectively than with this brief serio-comic "after the struggle" epilogue, whose mental relaxation comes as such a shock after the monumentality of the later quartets preceding it.

The Purcell players adeptly reflected its most fascinating aspects the elaborate exchange and development of fragments in the first movement; the springy syncopation of the vivace; the lento assai, conceived in rapt gravity; and the alternately grave and folkishly Viennese finale, all of which were disclosed in terms of warm tone and tight ensemble. Final item, also a high-ranking work in the chamber field, was Wcbcrn's Five Movements for String Quartet, Op. 5. As long as the Purcell Quartet had decided to be at the top of their form anyway on Sunday, they gave a first-rate performance of this too, drawing us into Web-crn's cool, concentrated, mysteriously dislocated world on the persuasions of their forceful and imaginative year travelling to fulfil guest conductor and music director duties with orchestras in Japan, Europe and other parts of North America. think we are enjoying a period of great challenge," Akiyama said Sunday, "and I would like to stay and put forth my best effort to help the orchestra keep growing." He said the enormous growth in VSO subscribers up from 16,000 three years ago to its present total of 27,000 which is equal to the combined subscription-total of the Vancouver Canucks and the Vancouver Blazers hockey teams "shows an exceptionally high level of cultural interest in this city." CALLBOARD Vancouver Art Gallery will present Language plus Emotion plus Syntax equals Message an exhibition of 27 major works by Les Levine from March 12 to April 13.

American pianist Garrick Ohlsson, first prize winner of the 1970 Chopin International Competition in Warsaw, will play at the Queen Elizabeth Playhouse at 8:30 p.m. March 17. His program will feature the works of Haydn, Mussorgsky and Chopin. The Playhouse Theatre Guild will present Hello Spring, a fashion show, together with Simon Gray's comedy Dutch Uncle at the Queen Elizabeth Playhouse at 7:30 p.m. March 19.

Vancouver Little Theatre will present Charles Dyer's comedy, Rattle of a Simple Man, at the York Theatre at 8:30 p.m. March 6-8, 13-15 and 20-22. The story of a rabid Manchester football fan's wild London weekend is directed by Bob Weeks and features Nancy Failes, Royce Hill and Matthew Gray. Upcoming concerts at the University of B.C. recital hall: the University Concert Singers, under the direction of Courtland Hultberg, at 12:30 p.m.

and 8 p.m. March 11; faculty recital with pianists Dale Reubart and Robert Rogers at 8 p.m. March 12; Heather Pinchin, soprano, and Harold Brown, piano, at 12:30 p.m. March 13, and the University Symphonic Wind Ensemble under the direction of Paul Douglas, with piano soloist David Pickcll, at 12:30 p.m. and 8 p.m.

March 14 and 15. Five members of the Vancouver Cello Club will perform works by Bach, Dc-' bussy, Bartok and Schuler at the Community Music School, 557 West Twelfth, By LLOYD DYKK The Purcell String Quartet's aptly-named Distinguished Chamber Music series at Simon Fraser University featured on Sunday afternoon guest artist Barry Snyder, pianist currently on the faculty of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. The concert was a worthy successor to past ones in the series, which have presented pianist Robert Silverman and violist Raphael Hillyer in performances of the repertory's great quintets with the Purcell strings. Sunday they played Franck's Piano Quintet in Minor, a work cast in consummate mastery through its theme-development and its dramatic system of balances between piano and strings, and written in Franck's mystic, spell-bindingly personal language. Snyder applied himself with firm adroitness to his role, as did the strings to theirs, together weaving Franck's taut, flexible matrix of recurrent themes with inexorable and intense address.

The quintet's great themes, extending concentrically and pervading the work in ever-widening circles, like rings of water, were expanded in a single-minded drive, accumulating moment in subtle sweeps; and every detail shimmered wilh the nervous beauties of.